Day 2

I have to apologize in advance for not having any pictures today. There really isn't much you can legally take pictures of in a hospital. :) Instead I will give you some illustrations of what I experienced today. Although parts of the training experience in a new job are dull, there are other parts that are absolutely invigorating. 

One of the cool parts about this job is working with good friends from college. Today I carpooled with my good friend Ashley and then we met up for lunch later too. It was great to share the long drive in and catch up. I'm seriously going to love seeing her around all the time. =D 

Today, more than yesterday it really set in that I'm actually working in an honest to goodness hospital. Real patients, real doctors, grumpy nurses, friendly nurses, diet orders, patient charting etc etc. There were times today that I felt like a complete fraud, an outsider. At one point, I was smack dab in the middle of the nurse's station in the cardiac unit, looking through a patient's chart and I thought... "am I supposed to be doing this? why isn't a Doctor tackling me and throwing me out? Oh right! because I'm wearing this nifty badge and I look like I know what I'm doing (sort of but not really)" Seriously, I just can't believe that these grown-up medical people are trusting me with these sort of responsibilities. Don't they know better?! :)

I spent so much of my time yesterday getting lost inside this massive hospital so today was really encouraging to realize I can now find my way around 3-4 different floors. Although I'm still not sure I can find my way out...

 I'm just going to embroider this sign onto the back of my lab coat just to remove any doubt someone might have.

The other thing I liked about today was actually seeing patients. This will seem backwards but a lot of them really made my day sweeter. Here they were hooked up to tubes and monitors and oxygen and they were cracking jokes with me, being completely cheery. It was such a wonderful thing to experience. You think of hospitals as dreary, depressing places and for some reasons they are but, it was really great to walk into a patient's room and be greeted with a smile, a feeble wave and a corny joke. Maybe I'll get tired of the jokes 3 months in but for now, they cheer me.

I'm learning so much and a lot of the stuff in my brain that's leftover from school is getting the dust shaken off. 

In summary... I'm so excited to have a grown-up job! =D FINALLY!